Holy Week: Easter in Spain

“Semana Santa” or the Holy Week is one of the most important events of the year in Seville. It is celebrated in the week leading up to Easter and attracts many thousands of tourists from all the world.

During that week in April István and Ferenc were tourists a few times...

by FERENC IVANICS
There’s a nice and detailed article about the Holy Week on Wikipedia, it describes the basics (and more) of this famous religious celebration.

The week features the procession of pasos, floats of lifelike wooden sculptures of individual scenes of the events of the Passion, or images of the Virgin Mary showing restrained grief for the torture and killing of her son. Some of the sculptures are of great antiquity and are considered artistic masterpieces.

The processions are organised by hermandades and cofradías, religious brotherhoods. During the processions, members precede the pasos (of which there are up to three in each procession) dressed in penitential robes, and, with few exceptions, hoods. They may also be accompanied by brass bands. (Wikipedia)

This really is an important event for the catholic community, but it has a huge impact on tourism as well, the city is extremely crowded during these days, we might talk about millions of spectators. More than once we packed our “donation box” too late, and we became prisoners of the city, of the crowd for an hour or two. There are processions of brotherhoods in the city from Palm Sunday through to Easter Sunday morning. And there is a traditional suit worn by local women, which is called mantilla (the mantle), practically it’s a suit of mourn.





Nazarenes, penitents, altar boys; you can see all of them marching in strict order with crosses, candles and the paso. During the night they lit the candles and the procession leaves a slippery, greasy trail. Wheels of even the slowest cars screech on that wax while turning a corner even days after a procession, reminding us of some Hollywood sound effects. If you close your eyes you can imagine some crazy hot-rods racing on the streets of the Old Town. Children often ask nazarenes for a few drops of hot wax to build a wax ball. The other thing they ask for is candy, since they know all too well that the members of the procession usually carry some reserve energy in hand (since the march can be quite exhausting).


There are other participants of the processions, too: policemen. The pasos are richly carved and decorated with fabric, flowers and candles, but they are often gilded and silver-plated. We have heard rumors about a past incident, so they are there, just in case. Since touching the pasos is a common habit of the Spaniards. It brings luck, they say. We touched a gilded paso and it felt rich and serious gold, recalled some memories about ripe, summer sunshine, warm, glorious sunflower oil, a full flavored Tokaji aszú wine.


We had a chance to attend to a lecture about the Holy Week at the Texas Tech University. The researcher Dr. Doug Inglis went into interesting and lesser known details as well. He told the audience about a convent, which opens its gates only once a year, in the middle of the night, when a procession passes in front of the convent’s building. The sisters gather at the entrance and their families have the only chance to see them, to touch them, to hug them. Then, until next year they live in their separated world again.

So, we joined Kurt Caswell and went to check out this story. And it happened just like Dr. Inglis had it described, though a lot later then expected. We waited some two hours for the thing to happen. And for moments we seriously doubted that it would. Finally a small crowd gathered around the gates and the sisters appeared, a few of them, at least, and they blessed the paso. One of the carriers, an older man said a prayer for his mortally ill son, and asked his fellows to lift the paso for his son that time.


A team of men carry the paso, supporting beams upon their shoulders and necks. They are inside the structure and normally are invisible to the viewers. During the week we have seen them taking a break in bars various times. It’s a heavy work, heavy indeed, some of the structures weigh over a metric ton. You can see the proof on the rear side of their neck... And it was a hard week for us as well, people are less interested in helping out the homeless and the beggar, they run around the city instead. But anyways, it was a nice and sometimes moving experience for sure.